CHAT ARCHIVE - 6-12-1999, Imminent Danger

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ICQ Chat Save file
Started on Sun Jun 13 01:01:33 1999

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<Bookpal> How is your story coming along - I missed all that last night
<Casey> I don't like chpt. 3 and intend to rewrite it. Zach simply confirmed last night that chpt. 3 isn't working.
<Bookpal> are you going to rewrite it now or wait?
<Casey> Am going to rewrite it before I go on because what happens here affects what follows.
<Bookpal> that's what I wondered
<Casey> But since everyone else is still working on chpt. 2, my doing so won't hold anyone up.
<Bookpal> when i don't like something i write, someone else will read it - that has no experience- and say they think it is good and that really bugs me.
<Bookpal> I think we know when something isn't working and it would be good to have someone confirm it.
<Casey> A writing teacher once told me to trust my own instincts and I believe him. He said that individuals who aren't writers don't especially know what they should be looking for, etc., and usually like a work for their own reasons, that have nothing to do with whether a piece works or doesn't work as a literary form.
<Bookpal> I agree
<Bookpal> The only help I find really helpful is if the person I ask to read something understands what I was trying to get across
<Casey> So trust your own instincts, BP. I didn't really understand why I didn't like chpt. 3, and Zach was able to name the problem with it last night. That was helpful.
<Bookpal> That's great! That's just what I mean by someone confirming and knowing enough about writing to help you discover what it is. Like having another set of eyes when you are looking for something.
<Casey> Yep. That's why many times I'll ask someone specific questions about one of my scenes, to see whether they understood what I wanted them to understand from what they read.
<Bookpal> Yep. That really helps. Words we use can mean something different to many readers. Have to choose words that say just what we mean.
<shorty103> sorry I'm late Casey, saw Kay, and spent time with Evie too!
<shorty103> so what did I miss?
<Casey> Difficulties getting onto ICQ is what you missed.
<Casey> We'll skip the grammar part tonight and go into Imminent Danger since ICQ used up our grammar time.
<Casey> In order to carry through an impression of danger, we must first begin with a threat.
<Casey> That threat is usually established within our hook, that begins our novel or story.
<shorty103> like raising a knife or the use of a gun
<Casey> Even larger than that, Rose. It's usually tied to our theme.
<shorty103> okay
<Casey> Like, the threat of being killed, is a common danger we place protagonists in.
<shorty103> understood, now! LOL
<Casey> But the threat of being killed is usually pretty drastic.
<Casey> Other dangers that are more commonplace work just as well if not better.
<Casey> The threat of a child being taken away from a parent is one.
<Casey> Care to name others?
<shorty103> just give me a moment to think please
<Casey> Think about your own story, Rose.
<Bookpal> someone you love being hurt
<Bookpal> the loss of a job
<Casey> A car about to be repossessed.
<shorty103> being run over with a car or truck
<Bookpal> divorce
<Casey> a pending death through disease
<Casey> the threatened loss of a home
<Bookpal> a major move to another part of the country because of a job
<shorty103> the child is one of many things that I had to deal with, and you have covered that one Casey
<Bookpal> being fired
<Bookpal> passed over for promotion
<Casey> the struggle to get away from an abusive relationship (parent/child, husband/wife, psychotic killer/victim)
<Bookpal> becoming handicapped because of injury/illness
<shorty103> you have come up with some good one BP
<Bookpal> good one, Casey
<Bookpal> thanks
<Casey> reduction in child visitation or the threat of supervised visitation only.
<Bookpal> Casey made me brainstorm for 10 minutes earlier tonight - maybe it helped
<Bookpal> yep - that would be a serious threat Casey
<shorty103> yes, I think it was successful
<Bookpal> lol
<Casey> All of these are excellent, and some of them have been the basis of stories I've read or seen in movies that stick in my mind.
<Casey> Okay, we've established our major threat. Now, how do we maintain a feeling a anxiety throughout the story--until the threat is resolved?
<Bookpal> I've spread the word in my area what an excellent teacher Casey is - serious - no joke!
<Casey> What! Bookpal!!
<Bookpal> yep, I have!
<shorty103> that's great, but I don't know any one to do that, or I would tell them to join us too!
<Casey> I blush.
<Bookpal> I have paid for lots of classes that were not as good as what I learn from you.
<Casey> Thank you.
<Bookpal> whoops! now she will want money -:)
<Casey> Nope. Zen's threatened to do that before and I've overruled him. I have *some* clout in that matter.
<shorty103> yes, I love this class,
<shorty103> so what's next, I can't stay for very much longer Casey, maybe another 30 minutes at most okay
<Casey> Establishing secondary threats is practically a necessity.
<Casey> These can be ancillary to the major threat
<Casey> or subplots within the main plot.
<Bookpal> like trying to escape a killer and your car dies?
<Casey> yes, BP.
<Bookpal> you see that a lot in TV shows/Movies - the lady trying to get the car started
<shorty103> yes, and just as the window breaks, she drives away
<Casey> Also, if the writer establishes steps that increase the likelihood of the major threat happening, the reader will watch doom approach and feel helpless.
<Bookpal> true, Casey
<Bookpal> you got it Rose
<shorty103> I guess I watch too much tv
<Bookpal> Tv can help as far as learning about suspense
<Casey> You're right, Bookie, because TV tends to simplify plot techniques. They're easy to spot.
<shorty103> well, then I'm doing something right by studying how a movie goes
<Bookpal> If you watch the clock you know when something is going to happen ( 2 hour movie)
<Bookpal> I learned to call them "plot points" in a class and I have never watched a movie in the same way again
<Casey> Knootz suggests that every plot should have a romance line going through it. That's one subplot you can use within your storyline.
<Bookpal> Really?
<shorty103> so by studying that, it can reflect in some of the techniques used in writing
<Bookpal> I think so, Rose
<Bookpal> It does point out you need to have something happening every so many minutes to keep them watching
<shorty103> yes, so in turn it means that at least once or twice within a chapter you should have something happening
<Casey> It's similar to written stories, too. There must be something going on within the story that pulls the reader along.
<Casey> When the reader gets bored, he/she will stop reading.
<Casey> Okay, now to the nitty-gritty. You have the major plot and subplots, or all the multiple steps that, when achieved, will mean the antagonist has won.
<Bookpal> do you mean the "antagonist has won" or the reader thinks at that point the antag will?
<Casey> The reader should think that the antag will win up until the second he doesn't.
<Casey> In order to keep the tension real throughout the story, make certain that your protagonist is constantly vigilant, constantly looking to see where disaster will strike next, seeing depressing signs in everything around him.
<shorty103> I think that at the half way point the reader should think that the antag is going to win, but still unsure
<Bookpal> good points both of you
<Bookpal> this will be VERY important in what I'm working on now
<Casey> He can even win, but one small twist (that has been foreshadowed) kicks in and saves the day.
<Bookpal> cool
<Casey> And that twist should be something instigated or set in place by the protag.
<shorty103> yes, but still leave a little room for the protagonist have the chance to win, but still leave that unsure as well
<Casey> Don't ever have space aliens come down out of the sky to pick the protag up before the bullet strikes his chest or you'll have readers falling out all over the place from disgust.
<Bookpal> lol
<Bookpal> Do you use all this same stuff for SF as well as mystery/suspense? I'm sure you would, but never thought of it
<shorty103> yes, that is so true
<Casey> I use every writing technique known or invented in whatever I'm writing, despite genre.
<Casey> Mystery has some great techniques that build suspense that are great in SF.
<Bookpal> Even works in business - I find I use it then or people tell me I do - lol
<Casey> First and foremost, be a writer. You can be a writer writing mysteries or SF or romance--but the techniques work in whatever genre you chose.
<shorty103> Oh Casey, I thought I would tell you that what we talking about, I did do it, I transferred the story to a disk, and to the other program successfully
<Casey> That's great Rose! I was hoping that something like that would work.
<Bookpal> true - I think that is why someone like Koontz has been able to write in every genre
<Casey> Genres are genres because they rely heavier on one technique than another.
<Casey> And because of the subject matter they address.
<shorty103> I just thought I would let you know, and I am working on it very slowly to make sure I get each paragraph the way I feel it should read, I also broke up the story , I put each paragraph a space apart, and that way I can do each one by itself
<Bookpal> He does write by the rules - which I like to point out to people that tell me they don't follow the rules of writing - it shows too.
<Casey> Very good point, BP.
<Bookpal> sounds like you are making good progress, Rose. Good job.
<Casey> It's how come he's so well published and others aren't?
<Bookpal> lol- we have a real nut case in our local group - has finished 10 romance novels and has hundreds of rejections
<Casey> Back to subject:
<Casey> Secondary characters can question the progtag's motives--make him doubt himself. Make him feel that he's really being the bad guy.
<Bookpal> oooh, good point to remember (for me)
<Casey> (I'm sorry. I'm laughing. I have such a poor opinion of romance novels that I cannot comment on them.)
<shorty103> yes, but why should I do that, when one of my character already does that to herself
<Bookpal> ROFL - this woman would crack you up - she is unbelievable
<Casey> Then you're already using that technique, Rose.
<Casey> Good for you.
<shorty103> I didn't know I was. LOL
<Bookpal> That could create tension for the reader Rose - they would want her to overcome those thoughts/feelings
<shorty103> as this character is much like me, I have a lot of self-doubt, and I think that it shows within the story
<Casey> You can have the character's own actions seem to advance the antagonist's case.
<Bookpal> for sure!
<Casey> The movie where the husband dresses up as a woman in order to caretake his own children is an excellent example.
<shorty103> yes, I see that now, I guess I need reminding more than once
<Bookpal> yes, it is
<Casey> His "bizarre" behavior is used against him in court to give the wife full custody. He gets supervised visitation.
<shorty103> yes, Thank god for Mrs. Doubtfire! LOL
<Bookpal> good point
<Bookpal> I took a mystery writing class and Cinderella was used as an example as plot points causing tension - if you think about it you will find it is true
<shorty103> true
<Casey> You can have your protag see scary possibilities even in simple and common actions. Such as, he picks up a pencil and begins thinking of it as a weapon--imagining it plunged into his enemy's chest.
<shorty103> interesting
<Bookpal> another good one, Casey
<Casey> These things, individually, seem simple, but combined, can create one gripping story.
<shorty103> very true
<Bookpal> yep, true
<Bookpal> I know why I did not finish By Chance when I started two years ago - I needed these reminders
<Casey> Well, now you've been reminded . . . but first you've got to finish Anna!!
<Bookpal> By Chance is Anna
<shorty103> yes, and more than once I might add, any one have a brick they don't need! LOL
<Casey> Ahhhh! I've never known its title.
<Bookpal> Things happened to her "By Chance"
<Casey> Good title.
<shorty103> yes it is BP
<Bookpal> I researched it for two months - good way to put off writing - lol
<Casey> And let's not overlook all the possibilities inherent in description!
<Casey> Through description, we maintain an atmosphere of doom and peril by our choice of words.
<shorty103> well, the bell has tolled, it time to go! Talk to you later and thanks for the buffer Casey, Sweet dreams to both of you, and say hi to Harold for me.
<Bookpal> description is where I really need help
<Casey> Goodnight, Rose.
<Bookpal> Is Rose leaving - night Rose
<Casey> Description is what I've had to work the hardest at--and still labor over.
<Bookpal> I brought a book home from the library this weekend to work on description
<Casey> What book did you find?
<Bookpal> Description: How to engage readers and keep stories moving by creating vivid, believable depictions of people, places, events and actions
<Bookpal> by Monica Wood - a Writer's Digest Book - it is really good
<Casey> Sounds good. I've not heard of that one before.
<Casey> I'll check in my library for a copy.
<Casey> I'm always on the lookout for help.
<Bookpal> It made description make sense to me for the first time. Do, I think you would like it.
<Casey> I try for description that adds something to my story. Such as, descriptions of the desert that will make the reader realize that my characters are in trouble if their water supply gets low.
<Bookpal> good point, Casey
<Bookpal> Another one that is also is a WD book is Plot: how to build short stories and novels that don't sag, fizzle, or trail off in scraps of frustrated revision-and how to rescue stories that do.
<Casey> I need that one right now!!
<Casey> WD publishes some really good books.
<Casey> I've gotten a lot out of the ones I've read.
<Bookpal> It really is good - works for me - if the library doesn't have them you might want to order it
<Bookpal> They have a third in the series called Dialogue but it isn't very good for some reason
<Casey> Those kinds of books I don't mind owning because they're something I can continually refer back to and see something that I might have missed the first time around.
<Bookpal> I know I want to buy both of these - but they are at my house most of the time anyway because no one else wants them lol
<Chipmonk> I think we were still suffering the afteraffects of the storm. I had trouble getting online after the power came back on.
<Casey> BP and I both had trouble getting online tonight. I think the problem is system-wide.
<Bookpal> I hate to do this - but I have to cut out - company! This is the second time this has happened.
<Chipmonk> Aw! But live physical people take presidence I suppose.
<Casey> Understand, BP. That's okay. You've only missed doing the exercise I'd planned. Goodnight, and enjoy your company.
<Chipmonk> Good to see you again! Good night.
<Bookpal> can you email the exercise? or make sure it is in the buffer
<Casey> Sure.
<Bookpal> Night you two.
<Casey> Want to do an exercise, Chip--without knowing anything that went before in this class?
<Chipmonk> Sure, but let me get a drink.
<Casey> Think I'll get one, too. brb
<Chipmonk> I'm back.
<Casey> The last suggestion I made was to use description to carry over the sense of impending doom developed through the other techniques discussed.
<Chipmonk> What were the other techniques?
<Chipmonk> I saw something about cars not starting when the killer is after someone.
<Casey> Establish a major threat which is your story's plot line, develop sub-threats (to include steps that lead up to the major threat)
<Casey> (the steps part is where you came in)
<Chipmonk> Ooo that's a lot.
<Casey> Then I listed several techniques to maintain the established threats throughout.
<Chipmonk> I did think up an alternative to the car not starting thing.
<Casey> What's that?
<Chipmonk> All through the story the protag has trouble starting the car, so when the killer or monster comes after them, you expect the car not to start.
<Chipmonk> But it starts right up only they take off so fast they run into a tree or something and hook the bumper. Then they have to get it unhooked.
<Casey> Yep. I mentioned the necessity of foreshadowing, and warned about having aliens come down and lift the protag out of his problems 1/2 second before the bullet hits his chest.
<Chipmonk> Unless that gets him in a worse situation.
<Casey> I'm very sorry you couldn't stay with us.
<Chipmonk> Oh well, stuff happens.
<Casey> I was trying to make them understand that out-of-the blue rescues by 5th parties don't usually work.
<Chipmonk> Unless you're writing a parody or put in a new twist.
<Casey> Yep. But by that time we were discussing the climax.
<Chipmonk> What, with Herbal Essence Shampoo?
<Casey> lol!
<Chipmonk> Yes! Yes! OooooYES!!!
<Casey> You add so much to a discussion! I love your wit.
<Chipmonk> Teeeheeee.
<Chipmonk> We make a good team.
<Casey> yes, we do.
<Casey> Ready for the exercise now, or do you want a quick run down of the techniques--which really aren't necessary to know in this particular exercise.
<Chipmonk> Okay, let's do the exercise.
<Casey> Describe a lake as seen through the eyes of a murderer. Do not mention the killer or the dead body.
<Chipmonk> Okay, let me think a second.
<Chipmonk> The moonlight reflected off the ripples. Laughing light. Shimmering brightness. Release. It was over and he laughed with the moonlight that, with it's gaity, covered the dark depths and the secret now sinking gently to the lake's darkest depths.
<Casey> The sun's setting rays lit the sky in a bloody red that reflected in the waters of the lake, cut only by the steel gray wavelets lapping the bank.
<Chipmonk> Oops got repetitive there.
<Casey> That's okay. It's hard to remember what's already been written when you can't go back and look at the line.
<Chipmonk> Oooo, bloody sun! Yucky!
<Casey> I was trying to get a knife image in there, too, with the steel gray shadows.
<Casey> I like your depth secrets.
<Chipmonk> Very vivid with the colors.
<Casey> You threw the body in the lake!
<Chipmonk> I can see the ripple shadows looking like knife blade reflections.
<Casey> Neat and bizarre contrast with the laughter.
<Chipmonk> Kind of the opposite of mine.
<Chipmonk> I was thinking homicidal maniac.
<Casey> And it came across. Someone who gets a rush and high from his work. Yucky!
<Chipmonk> Mwah ha ha!
<Chipmonk> And neither mentioned killing.
<Casey> I like the thinking processes these exercises bring out.
<Casey> They clearly show our differences as writers.
<Chipmonk> Witchie and I were talking about what nice mild mannered people horror writers were.
<Casey> Isn't it funny? All that pent up hostility that comes out in their writing and not in real life.
<Casey> (Whew!)
<Chipmonk> Your lake was telling on the killer and mine was an accomplice.
<Casey> Excellent point.
<Chipmonk> Hey, maybe if we could get more psychos to write the murder rate would drop.
<Casey> One of the neatest descriptions of water and a killer I've ever read was used in the descriptions of the Green River murders.
<Chipmonk> What was the Green River murders?
<Casey> The description was of fishing, and how fishermen sometimes put their strings of fish over the side of the boat, and how the water refraction made the catch appear larger--which is what the Green River killer was doing by weighing his victims and dropping them in the river.
<Chipmonk> Weird.
<Casey> Violent, horrific sex-murder serial killer in Washington state.
<Chipmonk> Made him feel more powerful I suppose?
<Chipmonk> Seeing his victims larger than life?
<Casey> That's the idea. Making it appear he'd killed something bigger than he had.
<Chipmonk> It would be interesting to trace some of these strange thoughts and compulsions from when they started and how they grew.
<Casey> Definitely.
<Chipmonk> I think we all get weird ideas that pop in our heads but why they grow and are acted on in some people and not others?
<Casey> The strange justification that go on in some of these minds.
<Chipmonk> Such as?
<Casey> The killing of prostitutes only--purging the world of sin. As though murdering them isn't sinful.
<Chipmonk> The end justifies the means?
<Casey> Throwing their bodies on trash heaps--equating them with trash.
<Chipmonk> I had a friend who worked in a prison and there was this guy there who dressed in women's clothes, killed women, buried them, then dug them up later to have sex with the corpse.
<Chipmonk> She never found out what went on in his mind to make him do that.
<Casey> Now that is bizarre!
<Casey> Makes you really wonder about his thinking.
<Chipmonk> I can understand someone having such shame over their sexual impulses and obsessions that they kill to cover it up, or blame the person for leading them to sin and kill them for it.
<Casey> Somewhere along the line, his experience with women really took a wrong turn.
<Chipmonk> But to do bury them first? Or eat them, like Dommer did?
<Casey> With Dommer, my brain keeps linking his actions to Stranger in a Strange Land.
<Casey> Or, I keep remembering the philosophy about eating the dead presented there.
<Chipmonk> Wonder if he had some weird thing about his dead mother or something?
<Chipmonk> Oh yes, like taking on the power or the spirit of the dead person.
<Casey> That, too.
<Chipmonk> Weird conversation we are having here!
<Casey> Altho in Stranger, it's more of being so close to an individual that you want to take them into yourself--the closest you can come to them, ever.
<Casey> Incorporate them into your being?
<Casey> Yep. Very weird.
<Chipmonk> But that's the sort of thing I had in mind for an open chat--to discuss ideas and motivations and such instead of writing technique.
<Chipmonk> Dig into people's heads.
<Casey> Those are the kinds of chats that inspire people, and get them thinking beyond the common and ordinary.
<Chipmonk> Right and hopefully will add depth to their writing.
<Chipmonk> Or art or music.
<Casey> Every book I've ever read that has stayed with me through the years has delved into one subject so deeply that it brought out aspects of the topic I'd never considered before.
<Chipmonk> That's what writing should do.
<Casey> Exactly. Which means, thinking long, hard and deep into subjects.
<Chipmonk> I really liked Silence of the Lambs--the book--for that reason.
<Chipmonk> Clarice analyzing the situation and what to say and where Lechter was going .
<Casey> That's one of the very good ones.
<Chipmonk> The murders were secondary to what went on in her head as far as drama.
<Casey> It was amazing to me that as much of that came out in the movie as it did.
<Chipmonk> They did a good job.
<Casey> The medium usually falls flat in that area, and Silence didn't.
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